The News in Brief

I'm married.



Right now I'm recovering from surgery and don't feel like writing much, so more on married life later.

Don't need a watch to waste your time

First, congratulations to Kris and Andy on the birth of their baby! That would be my ex-sister-in-law and her husband up in warm and sunny Wisconsin. Stacey will be going up there this Spring Break for a week to play with her new cousin. I'll try to see if they mind me putting up more info and some pictures.

What's new with me? Still trying to set my body right after years of unhealthy living. I just posted a new "Inner Stork" entry over on my fatblog, and I recently had a bad run-in with an old friend of mine: caffeine.

I have been addicted to caffeine since I was a teenager, buying cans of Mountain Dew from my high school vending machine for a quarter each ('84, but we were a hippy school, not looking to make mad profit). I got quickly hooked, and drank several cans a day. For years. By the time I was a senior, I had stomach problems, and was prescribed the hot new drug at the time, Zantac. I didn't connect that with the pop drinking, attributing it instead to the stresses of being a 17 year old with a chip on his shoulder. Those of you who knew me at 17 may remember the chip. It was sizable.

Over the years, I had successes and failures with pop and my stomach, somehow being too dense to connect the dots. I went from Zantac to Protonix, to Prilosec, and kept drinking more and more pop, until I was up to around 3 liters a day.

Finally last month I hit the wall, doubled over with constant stomach pain for several days in a row. I took sick time off from work, performed poorly as a father and boyfriend, and was struggling not to be a disagreeable ass.

A pair of visits to the doctor and one ultrasound later, and nothing conclusive was determined, but a new ulcer is the most likely candidate. I started taking Nexium, and stopped drinking pop, and 4 days later I was back to full strength with no stomach pain, able to resume all my life's callings, business, fatherly, and amorous.

Like how I just slipped in "stopped drinking pop" in the middle of the sentence, like it was no big deal? If you've known me any time in the last 20 years, your mental image of me probably has a can of Mountain Dew in my left hand. Stopping was a big deal, and I have slightly more sympathy now for addicts of other drugs. My prior success at losing weight helped, knowing that I could go without something, knowing I could bare some discomfort. The headaches and cravings lasted a few days, and then nothing. And after a few more days, no exhaustion.

So now I've added pop to the list of undesirables I've given up: Alcohol, violence, gluttony, and greed. Next up: Meat, and envy. Those might take a while. However, I'm not a Jain, I'm just trying to get me through the night... alright... alright.

Unrelated - Farewell Gary.